On family reunions

Happy New Year, everyone! How were your holidays? Did you have a jolly good time?

For many of us, we had a nice Christmas break: a much deserved time away from school or work. This was a time for attending to religious duties, meeting old friends, opening presents, having dinner outs, and partying the night away. The holidays are also a time to head to our provinces to attend family reunions.

Ah, family reunions. It’s probably one of those things eligible gay bachelors who are still in the closet dread every year. Cousins, aunts and uncles whom you haven’t seen for quite some time will be curious and ask how you are. And they will always throw you a variation of one of the following questions:

• “Don’t you still have a girlfriend?”

• ”When are you getting married?”

• “When can we have nieces/nephews to play with?”

You try to deflect the questions and give one of the following canned replies:

• “I’m too busy with my career to have a relationship.”

• “I still haven’t found the right person.”

• “We broke up a while ago.”

And then quickly change the topic and ask them questions.

I’ve had my share of such questions. But fortunately for me, I have an older sibling who is still single so the attention is not fully centered on me. Hehehe. But if the questions would become too persistent, I might joke that I need to move to Canada, the Netherlands, or New York before I can get married.

How about you? How do you handle curious relatives during family reunions?

2011: A milestone

2011 is a personally significant year for me: it is the year that people I have personally known have died of AIDS.

In previous years, HIV/AIDS was a seemingly distant, though important, issue. Yes, I’ve been following several local blogs written by PLHIV or people living with HIV. Yes, I’ve been blogging about HIV/AIDS for quite sometime now. (In fact, this blog’s very first article had AIDS as one of its topics.) Yes, I’ve even written a couple of posts to mark December 1, or World AIDS Day. But it was only relatively recently that this issue has hit this close to home.

30 years after AIDS was first discovered, the effect of the growing incidence of HIV and AIDS among the local LGBT community is increasing in alarming amounts. What really bothers me is that I have this feeling that what’s happening now is similar to what happened in the United States back in the early 80s. You know that feeling of dread and fear? The feeling of hearing people, a friend, or a friend of a friend, dying of diseases that healthy people would have just sneezed at? The feeling of rising urgency brought on by alarming statistics? This should not be happening because of the benefit of retrospect and of lessons learned by lots of other people the hard way. Yet here we are.

I hope that all of the projects are making their mark and that more people are getting educated. I hope that the recent spike is just because more people are getting tested and that the numbers would stabilize soon. I hope that antiretroviral drugs would continue to be freely available to PLHIV. And I fervently hope that our biggest enemy, stigma—the one thing that really dampens our efforts to fight HIV/AIDS—would decline and never again rear its ugly head.

What’s your number?

Have you watched What’s Your Number?, a romantic comedy film starring Anna Faris and Chris Evans (who was as hot as ever in the movie)? The movie is about this girl named Ally (Faris) who read a magazine article that women have an average of 10 sexual partners, and that those who have had 20 or more were unlikely to get married. Ally then panicked when she realized that she has already had 19 partners (that inadvertently became 20) and when she saw how one of her exes had become quite the dashing (but taken) man, she decided to look up her exes—with the help of her womanizing neighbor Colin (Evans)—to see who deserves a second chance (just so she doesn’t go over 20). Of course, romantic comedies being what they are, Ally predictably ends up with Colin.

While the movie is a good watch (and Chris Evans is one big reason why), I was more intrigued with the idea of keeping a tally of the number of sexual partners one has ever had. (But not because we PLU guys want to get married.) Well, I’m the type of person who likes to keep track of things (as if it wasn’t obvious from my blog), but sad to say, I already lost count years ago. One general problem is that it’s hard to define what exactly constitutes a sexual partnership. Does it have to involve penetration (either orally or down there)? Does it have to involve an ejaculation? What if you just kissed and jerked each other off in the back seat of a car but nobody came to orgasm? What if you had a threesome or participated in an O party—do you count all or some of the guys?

Chris Evans’ character in the movie jokingly said that his number was probably around 200. Well, if I was to give a ballpark figure for mine, I would have say that it’s around 250, using a very loose definition of a “sexual encounter,” one which involves some non-trivial contact in the groin area. Between the encounters I have had in the gym, spas, and bathhouses (especially if you have a quota), and SEBs, chance encounters, and one night stands with guys met at gay clubs, I would have to say that 250 is my number.

I’m personally a bit shocked by that figure. But if I were to be honest with myself (and with you readers), it’s a reasonable estimate given that I have been sexually active for more than a decade already and pretty much single for most of those years. So that comes to around once every two weeks. (Hmmm, compare with Tristan’s goal of 30 boys in 30 days. Hehehe.) I would guess that my number is higher than the average Filipino gay guy’s and I probably deserve to be labeled “promiscuous.” Fortunately, I’ve been quite lucky and safe in my encounters and I intend for it to remain that way.

Speaking of promiscuity, people generally think that gay men are more promiscuous than straight men. I believe that to be true. Well, gay men are as equally horny as straight men, but because there is no risk of pregnancy and because gay men don’t have to contend with hard-to-get women, we guys generally have more of it. (The 70s was a particularly hedonistic era in gay America.) The problem is, unwanted pregnancy is not the only problem and gay sex became an unfortunate medium for the early worldwide transmission of AIDS. (AIDS was originally called GRID: gay-related immune deficiency.) The dreaded disease thus became an instrument for the increase of stigma against people like us.

Promiscuous or not, and whether you have only had one sexual encounter or one hundred, keeping it safe is a must for everyone. Wear protection and get yourself tested. There are a lot of support groups such as The Love Yourself Project to help you get over your fears. All right?

So, what’s your number?

Rest in peace, AJ

AJ, wherever you are now, I hope you are now at peace and free from all the pain. You had fought a good fight. While you can no longer roam this Earth with your travel buddy, Ernie, I know that you have just embarked on an journey of a lifetime. You will be missed.

How do you measure a year in the life?
How about love?

The evolution of BED (part 2)

I’ve been to the new BED a few times already and it now feels a little less alien than before. The familiar feelings are starting to come back and I’ve even seen some old friends—people that I haven’t seen for quite some time now.

This latest king-sized BED made me reminisce about the original BED: that old hole-in-the-wall clubbing hideout where boys were packed liked sardines. I still miss that place but there’s no stopping progress.

That BED of 2003 to 2005 holds many fond memories for me. That was where I met this guy who happened to be my neighbor. (It turned out that we lived in the same subdivision.) We spent a few times going home together and I fell for him. I once confessed my love for him and he replied, “I’m so not worth it.”

BED closed in October 2005 and claimed half the space of the old New York Cafe. The remaining space would become Rainbow Project, a restaurant/lounge operated by the owners of BED, before turning into the now-defunct Club Mafia, which was partly owned by a controversial Quezon City councilor-actress. The newly-renovated BED mostly retained the old style and look of the original BED, with it’s iconic circular sofas, except it was now bigger and bolder.

It was in that queen-sized BED that I met V. It was also in that BED that I would fall in love with the guy who I fell the hardest for. Unfortunately, even though he said that he loved me as well, we weren’t meant to be.

When BED got burned down last year, the owners took this trial as an opportunity to reinvent BED. Gone was the old logo as well as the club’s red circle motif. And gone almost completely was the old floor layout—the only remaining remnants are the original entrance and exit doors, the original stairway to the second floor and its adjoining bar. The remaining empty space of Orosa Courtyard was claimed, and the roof deck that was unused till now was also conquered. This king-sized BED now sports a space-age look and the DJ’s booth now takes center stage. And—get this—BED now features a whopping 5 bars!

The unique attraction of the original BED was the aquarium urinal. Well, they retained that and relocated it now to the ground floor CR. What I find amusing is that they decided to add another aquarium, above the DJ’s booth. The white screen where visuals are projected would occasionally roll up revealing gogo boys getting wet under shower heads while dancing on poles.

The question for me now is, will I have more fond memories of this new BED? Time will tell.

24 Kaikan (Shinjuku Ni-chome, Tokyo)

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Arty Farty (Shinjuku Ni-chome, Tokyo)

Inspired by the Corporate Closet’s IJ post about a bathhouse in Osaka, I decided to blog about the gay scene in Tokyo which I’ve had the chance to explore a bit during the times I’ve been to Japan several years ago. Like CC, I have this curious need to check out the pink scene whenever I go abroad. Hehehe. In the case of Tokyo, the place to go to is Shinjuku Ni-chome. That’s the Tokyo equivalent of Malate’s Orosa-Nakpil area.

One of the reasons why I started this blog and why I write a lot of guide-type entries is because of my experiences in Japan. I never would have tried out the gay scene there if I wasn’t able to read about it online. (And Utopia Asia is one good resource.) So I decided to share my knowledge about the Manila scene so that other PLUs who want to try it won’t go unprepared.

A bit of a background on Japan

Before anything else, let’s talk about the guys in Tokyo. Well, there are a lot of cute and yummy guys there and chinito types are plus pogi points for me. But generally, the cuteness density in Tokyo is not so much higher than in Manila. It’s just that you get to see a whole lot more people there especially on the trains and subways that you tend to see lots of cute guys too. The high school boys were particularly cute in their uniforms.

In Japan, homosexuality is somewhat a non-issue. Before Japan opened up to the West, the country was almost like the ancient Greeks in how they dealt with gay love. Nowadays, Japan’s society have somewhat adopted the Western Christian disapproval of homosexuality. Most gay people in Japan are in the closet and because of the societal pressure to marry, there are a lot of married gay men. (You can read more in Wikipedia.)

Shinjuku Ni-chome

As I’ve said, this small area east of Shinjuku Station is the equivalent of Orosa-Nakpil in Malate and consists of several small city blocks. Shinjuku Ni-chome has about a hundred to two hundred small gay bars, clubs and cafes. Most of them can only accommodate no more than 15 people. It’s a really intimate place and most bars are usually not welcoming of strangers. Generally, each bar has a preference of its clientèle; there are the bars for the young twinks, those for the muscle beefcakes, and several for the popular chubby bears. There is supposedly a bar for any particular type you might prefer.

However, one thing common among these bars is that all of them, save for a handful or so, do not accommodate foreigners, or gaijin. Like many Filipinos, Japanese tend to stick to their own. Based on what I’ve researched back then, the only foreigner-friendly and popular bars back then were Advocates Cafe, Arty Farty, BG, and Club Dragon. I’m not sure if these still exist today.

Trying out Arty Farty

Photo taken from Flickr.

One Friday several years ago, I decided to finally try the scene out and so I swung by Shinjuku to do some advance scouting. (Yes, dapat may ocular inspection muna. Hehehe.) It was early in the evening so the area was not too crowded and I went around and around to look for these supposed four gaijin-friendly places. I found all of them except for Arty Farty. And, boy were they right when they said the bars were small. I don’t think you can pack more than 20 people inside Advocates Cafe alone.

The next day, Saturday, was my planned actual immersion to this world in Shinjuku. Before leaving for my gimik, I got on the Internet and researched some more and finally found the correct address of Arty Farty. (The Internet is your friend!) I got to Shinjuku Ni-chome at around 10 in the evening with the intention of staying up until 5 am, when the first trains start to ply their routes. (People who go out and have fun can either party till midnight and catch the last trains, or drink the night away until the trains move again.)

I wasn’t sure where to go really so I loitered around the area checking the scene out. There weren’t too many people in Advocates, and I couldn’t tell whether there were a lot of people in BG or Club Dragon. I went to where Arty Farty was located instead and after a short while a Caucasian guy went up to the door of Arty Farty and wondered how to open it. I helped him and we both got inside. Woah. There was no entrance fee!

Inside was a different world altogether. The place was packed to the brim and there were guys from all over the world having a great time. I can definitely tell that Arty Farty was the it place in Shinjuku Ni-chome, much like BED is in Malate. There were a lot of foreigners in there and the Japanese crowd is mostly between 20 to 35 years old. It’s very, very cosmopolitan. Arty Farty is also one of the exceptions to the bars in that it is large; there were probably a hundred people in there that I saw.

That said, I realized that it’s hard for me to socialize in a place like that. As I’ve said, Japanese tend to prefer other Japanese, and those that prefer gaijin prefer the white guys. Well, the Japanese can easily tell that I’m not one of them so I’m left mostly alone. The other foreigners, on the other hand, would assume that I’m Japanese and left me alone as well. Tsk, tsk.

A did get to talk to a couple of guys. One is a Japanese who asked if I were Thai or Malaysian. (Hehe, close enough.) He invited me to go to his place, but since I had no plan of doing anything naughty (besides, he wasn’t my type), I declined his offer. The other guy is a British citizen of Sri Lankan ancestry who got curious with me. He was definitely not my type so the conversation was short.

The music was nice enough, but it’s a clubber’s nightmare. The DJ had no mixing skills at all (actually he never attempted it) and the playlist had a bunch of house music followed by several hip-hop and R&B songs followed by house music and so on. I wished it was one or the other all throughout the night and that there was decent mixing. Then again, people did dance wildly when Madonna’s “Hung Up” and “Sorry” were played back-to-back and also when a bunch of Destiny’s Child hits were brought up later, so I guess they really enjoyed the music. But it does not hold a candle to the floor-filling goodness of a good Saturday night in Bed.

I got tired with the scene in Arty Farty at around 2 am. I’ve seen enough, decided that there’s no place like back home, and wanted to go back to the place I was staying at in southern Tokyo. But it was too late to go home by then so I tried my best to enjoy myself until 5 am. I think I even napped for a while on one of the sofas there.

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Next up, I’ll talk about 24 Kaikan, the most popular chain (yes, chain!) of bathhouses in Tokyo.

Naughty in Bed

What’s the naughtiest or wildest thing you’ve ever done or experienced in Bed (the gay dance club, that is)? (And I’m referring to things that doesn’t involve getting intoxicated or wasted.) I’m quite sure several of my readers have done torrid kissing or even getting groped or have groped someone else inside his pants while partying in the club, but I’m looking for naughtier things than that. For example, one guy I met before in Bed disclosed to me that he once got head while inside the club before. The guy who gave him a good mouth job just got down on him in a corner and did his thing while a friend of the one who went down acted as the lookout.

Well, on my part, I can think of a couple. Hehehe. One of these two happened in late 2007. I was hanging out near the CR on the ground floor (and this was back before the management semi-enclosed that area) and noticed this cute semikal guy. He was checking me out too and it was not long before we found ourselves in each other’s arms, kissing like crazy. He eventually started groping me and then later unzipped my jeans and took it out. I wasn’t alarmed or got conscious because the place was dark enough that people didn’t notice what was happening. But, he apparently wasn’t satisfied with just stroking me because after a while, he went down and took me in his mouth and started sucking! Try to imagine the feeling of shock, alarm, and pleasure all mixed together. That was what I felt at that time. And as much as I wanted it to continue, I had to motion for him to get up because two guys started looking our way and I really didn’t want us to be reprimanded or get booted out of the club. Of course, we both didn’t want to leave ourselves hanging so the oral activity continued later in the car while the happy ending occurred much, much later in his house. Hehehe.

The second story I will share took place way, way back in 2005, back when Bed was in its original hole-in-the-wall and cramped size. There were these two quite good-looking guys who were regular patrons of the club (and both were VIP if I remember correctly). One time I was in Bed drinking my beer when I noticed one of them staring at me across the bar. His friend also sneaked glances at me so I was sure they were both interested. But nothing came of it that night because I was too torpe.

The next time I was in Bed. The guy who was staring at me eventually approached me and introduced himself. After talking for a bit and stealing kisses from each other, we went to the bar where he introduced me to his friend who also kissed me. After chit-chatting for a bit, they then took me up to the second floor and out the club’s exit. The first guy then brought me up the stairs towards the roof and while sitting on the steps he proceeded to make out with me. The friend soon joined after and we had an unforgettable threesome on the stairway just outside Bed.

(I learned much, much later after that these two were a couple in an open relationship and that they had this habit of trying to get good-looking guys in Bed into bed with them. I was told by no less than two different people that I should not have succumbed to their advances. As one of them said, “Those guys are so full of themselves, trying to bag every good-looking guy in this bar. It doesn’t help to feed their ego.” Oh well.)

So, anyway, those were my two naughtiest experiences at Bed. Have you experienced something like that? I’d love to hear your stories.

Ay, manikurista?

So there I was hanging out at the house of this guy I’ve been meeting on and off for the past two years. We were watching TV on the sofa when he noticed that I had untrimmed fingernails. He then said he’d clip them and proceeded to do so, after going to his room to fetch the nail clipper. Needless to say, I was a bit embarrassed and a little self-conscious the whole time he was trimming my nails.

Now the question is, what was the reason for this sudden urge of his?

1. He really likes me and was comfortable enough with me to not be bothered with doing something this personal? (Awww.)
2. He’s obsessed with hygiene to the point that he imposes on other people? (Yikes!)
3. He’s avoiding the possibility of me injuring him with scratches when we would have sex later? (Rawr!)
4. He’s a frustrated manicurist? (Ay!)
5. All of the above?

What do you guys think?

P.S. I don’t scratch. Really.

The guy at the gym

So there’s this guy I’ve been crushing on at the gym. He’s a bit tall (maybe 5′9″), moreno, and with a good homely face. He’s not as ripped as the other guys I’ve seen in that gym but he looks oh so fine and at least has a nice enough body.

I always notice whenever he enters the gym and I always keep stealing glances as him as he goes through his workout. I didn’t think that he’s PLU since I have never seen him glance back for more than a moment and I never caught him staring at other guys in the gym. He just kept to himself as he does his reps and sets.

Well imagine my surprise when I saw him enter the gym one night wearing a black shirt with the Government club logo at the back! (At that time, Government had already closed). I was a bit shocked since if he were PLU, he was hiding it pretty good and then he shows up wearing a gay club shirt! Is he really PLU? Maybe he’s a former employee, but then, why would he go to this gym? Or maybe he doesn’t know the significance of the logo? Nah. It’s very unlikely that he does not know what the logo means. So he must know that the logo is and made a deliberate choice to wear it. Or he grabbed some black shirt from the closet and didn’t realize that it had the G logo at the back? In any case, that shirt proves that he’s indeed PLU or at least gay-friendly.

Being the really shy guy that I am, I never acted on this discovery. If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

Pick-up

Has someone ever tried picking you up while you were standing on a sidewalk minding yourself? Well, I had that experience and the first time happened back in 2004.

It was nighttime. I was waiting then along Julia Vargas Avenue besides Megamall, waiting for my ride to fetch me. There was this one guy I noticed scoping me out. I did not think much of him because, although I sensed that he wasn’t straight, he was an ordinary-looking middle-aged guy. He disappeared after a while.

After a few more minutes, I saw him crossing back the street to my side. By then, we two were the only ones standing near the intersection. He was looking at me and I was looking at the road waiting for my ride.

He approached me and asked, “Pwede magtanong?” (Classic.) “Alam mo ba kung saan ang CoffeeLine?” (Pick-up tip #1: invent an obscure-sounding shop nobody knows so you can talk with the target person longer.)

“Sorry, di ko alam ’yon,” was my disinterested reply. I tried my best to put on my most snobby demeanor that my friends usually complain about.

“’Di ba sa may Shaw lang iyon?” he pressed.

(Eh, alam mo pala eh, ba’t ’di mo hanapin?) “Wala talaga akong alam na CoffeeLine.”

Unperturbed, he paused for a while before asking, “Anong pangalan mo?” I thought he’d never ask.

“Bakit?”

He offered his hand and introduced himself, “My name’s Eric.” Man, I don’t know if I’d admire him for being brave or pissed at him for being thick-faced. If I were in his shoes, I’d mutter a quick “sorry” and be on my way.

But since I’m not that rude a person to refuse an introduction, I shook his hand. “Vince,” came my reply.

Then comes the kicker. “Nagpapabayad ka ba?” Man! I knew I was expecting it but actually hearing it was quite a different experience. I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted.

“Ha?! Hindi.”

With a disappointed look, he utters “sorry” then crossed back the street hailing a taxi on the other side.

But the story didn’t end there. While still waiting for my ride, another guy was scoping me out as well. He is younger but still an ordinary-looking guy. Sigh. Why can’t the semi-cute guys be the ones who approach? Probably because most of them are playing hard-to-get.

Like the first one, this second guy finally gathered enough guts to approach and ask, “Pwedeng matanong kung anong oras na?” (Pick-up tip #2: If all else fails, ask for the time.)

He asked it because I was fiddling with my cellphone. Unfortunately for him, I was tinkering with it because it was having problems. I honestly couldn’t tell what time it was so I sincerely replied, “’Di ko alam eh.” Sounds mean, I know.

Unlike the first guy, he took the hint and went away.

Up till now, I still don’t know why two guys approached me that night. I didn’t think that Julia Vargas was a popular cruising/pick-up spot nor was I dressed like a call boy. I usually have a snobby look about me so the experience was totally unexpected. I laugh at it now and now I’m just curious if you guys have ever had similar experiences as well.

Paraan at dahilan

“Kung gusto, may paraan; kung ayaw, may dahilan.”

That’s what I told myself when I silently let go of this guy that I’ve been sort of pursuing for over a year. Let’s call him V. I first met V in Bed during the 2007 Christmas break. He was standing near the bar on the ground floor and I was attracted to his chinito looks and shaved head. We hit it off right away and ended up making out in the car somewhere in Malate before spending the night at his place. I rarely go to another guy’s pad after meeting him in Bed so the fact that I went with V says a lot about how much I like him.

We went out a few times after that and I visited him at his place and spent the night there several times. I’ve been single for quite a while and I considered V a really good prospect and was willing to see where things will eventually lead.

He says that he likes me a lot and I can tell because he’s quite malambing (affectionate) when we’re together at his house. But I can tell that he’s holding back and when I confronted him about it, he explained that he was still hurting from his previous relationship and that he needed time to “pick himself up.” I wasn’t in a hurry to get into a relationship so I told him that I was willing to wait.

And waited I did for several months. During that time I would occasionally ask him to go out to dinner with me or to watch a movie. He would reply that he was busy with work and that he promised to text me if ever he was free. Well, those texts never did come and I can’t reconcile the fact that he admits to liking me a lot but never finding the time to spend with me.

Action speaks louder than words and I guess he just was not interested enough. It’s been over a year since his break-up with his ex and I think that’s enough time to heal and to explore the possibility of spending time with other people. He says he likes me but he always had a reason. “Kung ayaw, laging mayroong dahilan.” And so I bid him adieu.